ABSTRACT
Therese Jolliffe, a young woman with autism, writes movingly (Jolliffe et al., 1992) about the difficulties that she and others like her may face on a daily basis:
Most people find that they can at least share their physical suffering with others, but no-one really understands what the emotional suffering of a person with autism is like, and there is no pain killer, injection or operation that can get rid of it or even…relieve it a little. Autism affects everything all the time [even] your dreams… People with autism get very angry because the frustration of not being able to understand the world properly is so terriblesometimes it gets too much, then people say they are surprised when I get angry. Life is such a struggle; indecision over things that other people refer to as trivial results in an awful lot of distress…if someone says ‘We may go shopping tomorrow’ or ‘We will see what happens’ they do not seem to realise that the uncertainty causes a lot of inner distress… I constantly labour, in a cognitive sense, over what may or may not occur… It is the confusion that results from not being able to understand the world around me which I think causes all the fear. This fear then brings a need to withdraw. Anything which helps reduce the confusion has the effect of reducing the fear and ultimately reduces the isolation and despair, thus making life a bit more bearable to live in’.
